1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a technology for controlling electro-optic elements for use in an electro-optic device or the like.
2. Related Art
Recently, display devices, each employing electro-optic elements, such as organic EL elements, which emit light with a luminance level in accordance with an amount of electric current flowing therethrough, have been in practical use. Such a display device, generally, uses pixel circuits each controlling an electric current supplied to the electro-optic element in accordance with an electric potential of the gate of a transistor (hereinafter, referred to as a “driving transistor”). The electric-current characteristic of the driving transistor varies depending on temperature. Thus, a variation of temperature results in a variation of the brightness of displayed images. In this regard, in JP-A-2011-221127, there has been disclosed a technology for detecting a temperature and correcting the luminance of electro-optic element on the basis of the detected temperature.
In conventional temperature correction methods, nevertheless, a correction for temperature has been made on the basis of a detected temperature on a real time basis. Thus, any correction error immediately results in a variation of the luminance of currently displayed images. In particular, in the case where the pixel circuit is formed on a silicon substrate, a sub-threshold region of the driving transistor is sometimes used as an operation area of the driving transistor. Since, in the sub-threshold region of the driving transistor, the electric-current characteristic thereof sensitively and largely varies, any real time process of measuring a temperature and controlling the luminance of a currently displayed image based on the measured temperature causes frequent and large variations of the luminance of the currently displayed image. Thus, there has been a problem that this frequent and large variations of the luminance of an image on a display screen result in the occurrence of flickering of the image.